


Follow Me Out, Across the Stars

by sassafrasx



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Accidents, Alternate Universe - Space, Friends to Lovers, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Masturbation, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-18 19:20:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5940199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassafrasx/pseuds/sassafrasx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Eggsy has ever wanted is to become a Kingsman and travel across the universe. Getting to know one Harry Hart in the process is the greatest bonus he could have asked for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow Me Out, Across the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stormboxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormboxx/gifts).



> Stormboxx: I really loved your prompts, especially the one about the ISS. In trying to write that, however, I realised that I do not have the technical knowledge or vocabulary to do it justice, so I truly hope you enjoy my more future scifi take on it! I tried to stay in the spirit of the prompt, while keeping to a time period where it's a bit easier to hand wave the technology. <3

~~~~

MISSION DeltaZ55981: Saponoid Galaxy

4 Cycle 13 of 64 LE, Outer Territories

Day 1

 

“Prick,” Eggsy mutters under his breath as Chester King formally waves them all off for the news cameras without even so much as the barest hint of acknowledgement of Eggsy’s presence on this mission.

He still hasn’t actually spoken to Eggsy other than a pointed “mmm” and a look of utter disappointment and superiority when Eggsy attempted to go up and introduce himself his first day of training — and Eggsy knows for a fact that he took both Charlie and Roxy aside for a nice little chat about their recruitment process just yesterday.

What a massive fucking wanker.

Harry tuts lightly from his spot next to Eggsy at the back of the lift. But when he murmurs, “Arthur captained more missions for Kingsman than anyone else in his era, you know,” there is an edge of amusement tugging at his lips as he gazes serenely ahead and he doesn’t even bother to disagree with Eggsy.

Eggsy looks down and bites his cheek, trying to hide his grin, because, _shit_ , Galahad himself is talking to Eggsy — going on a _mission_ with Eggsy — and his mile-long legs and perfect hair and posture are even nicer in person than on all the vids Eggsy’s consumed practically his entire sodding life, face glued every time Harry and his crew came back from another successful mission exploring new planets, whole new systems, to find ones fit for human habitation.

And now Eggsy has a chance to become a Kingsman too like he’d always dreamt of in his mum’s tiny flat on a dim outer planet where the only good thing he could say was that at least they were close to Kingsman headquarters, stuck as they were at the edge of human civilisation. He ain’t gonna fuck it up.

When everyone else gets off the lift to board the ship, Eggsy pauses and catches Harry’s eyes, wills him to see how serious he is when he says, “I know he don’t think I belong here. Most people don’t. But me passing all those tests wasn’t a fluke. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove I deserve this place.”

"Oh, I'm well aware of what Arthur thinks, but I have no doubts you're more than up to the task. I was the one who picked your application after all," Harry responds sunnily, easy as can please, and strolls those long legs right in front of Eggsy and out through the door.

Eggsy gapes after him, knees wobbly and head buzzing as his world tilts a bit on its axis and he can't decide if he wants to jump up and down fist pumping like a madman or just swallow his own tongue and swoon like his lower body clearly thinks he should. Galahad had picked him? _Shut up._

"Come along now, Eggsy," Harry calls out without even a backward glance, and Eggsy snaps his mouth shut and follows like he’s never wanted to follow anything more in his life.

Day 3

Roxy gives Eggsy a flat unimpressed look over the rim of her glasses from where she’s floating behind Harry’s shoulder. _Pathetic_ , she mouths at him.

Or maybe it was puppy. Eggsy can’t really argue with either assessment to be honest, but he glares daggers at her anyway when Harry turns away briefly to fiddle with something.

Roxy rolls her eyes as Eggsy slaps an eager grin back on his face just in time for Harry to look at him again. And there’s no reason for Eggsy to be here (he’s training to specialise in geological and biochemical analysis, and knows sod all about physics and spaceship engineering except insofar as it affects human and plant biology), but when Harry invited him along to check on something in the central hub and maybe “watch and learn a thing or two”, Eggsy wasn’t exactly gonna say no, yeah?

Plus, Eggsy never has any reason to come into this part of the ship, and playing in zero g is _fun_ , especially when it makes Harry’s hair go all floppy and adorable in a way that should definitely be illegal, but will probably just make Harry fuss as soon as they get back into gravity in the outer compartments. There are only six other people on board the ship, and yet the vain bastard is always perfectly put together and gets grumpy if a single hair is out of place, despite the fact that none of the rest of them give a shit and there’s absolutely no one else around to see them.

(“But the glasses, Eggsy. They record everything for posterity and if someone needed to go through the old mission files, well, I simply couldn’t bear it.”

“Oh, _fuck off_ , Harry. You’re ridiculous. And ridiculously fit and you know it, you arse.”

Harry’d positively preened at that, he had.)

“And that’s how you perform the diagnostic,” Harry declares and Eggsy nods his head like he’s a good student and has actually understood every single word Harry’s been saying for the past fifteen minutes and not just watching Harry’s hair and the way his nice, large hands move when he gesticulates. Those are the kind of hands a bloke would pay good money to feel on his dick. Oh yeah, _a lot of money_ , Eggsy thinks as he imagines those thick fingers skimming over his hips and thighs. He bets they have really good calluses too, the sort that would catch on his skin just enough to make him shiver, but not so much as to be too abrasive. _Fuck yeah_.

Eggsy really hopes Harry doesn’t ask him any questions because he’s officially absorbed nothing from this lesson. Roxy just makes gagging motions at Eggsy behind Harry’s back.

*

Merlin is looking at Eggsy like he can see straight through Eggsy’s skull and into his brain. Eggsy swallows.

“Lad, I’m only going to say this once. I have to check on every person on board this ship. Regularly. And I really don’t give a bleeding fuck about Galahad’s arse, so keep your eyes up for fuck’s sake.” Merlin makes a disgruntled face and continues muttering to himself as he walks away, “Not that his face when he talks to you is much better. Surrounded by bloody idiots…”

Day 8

“Positive discrimination is what it is,” Charlie says, pointing his spoon at Eggsy.

Eggsy crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair, raising his eyebrows as if to say, _you wanna have a fucking go?_

“Yes, it’s all so clear now. I’m stuck out here with you of all people when any of the other chaps from training could be here, but because your mum probably drank too much of the water on Pluton Nine and did her head in, now we’re all supposed to feel sorry for you and clap our hands because you’ve learnt how not to shit yourself despite being dropped too much as a child.”

“Yeah, well last I checked, I scored higher than you and all the other _chaps_ during training, so you can go fuck yourself.”

Charlie stops eating his porridge and narrows his eyes at Eggsy. “Harry must’ve fudged your numbers somehow.”

It is officially too fucking early for this shite and Eggsy flicks two fingers at Charlie and stomps out of their tiny meal room with its one sodding table.

And it’s not like Eggsy is unaware of what most everyone thinks, knows the kind of people Kingsman normally recruits. When Eggsy had shown up that first day, there’d been Charlie and Digby and Rufus and all the other rahs and not one pleb like him. Roxy’d been aces though, right from the very start, thank fuck, and Eggsy had just put his head down and worked his arse off.

No, he’d got here fair and square, and it’s a lot better now that they’re on the last trial of their training: a real mission with real Kingsmen, who’ve been much friendlier than most of the twats back at home base. Eggsy counts it as a real plus that he can actually imagine working with these people on a regular basis; Lancelot and Percival have been nothing but cordial and even Merlin seems to like him.

Well, during planetside training he had at least. Now he mostly stares at Harry and Eggsy like he’s trying to figure out a way to make them both spontaneously combust using only his brainwaves and then grumbles to himself and furiously bangs on his clipboard. Maybe spontaneous combustion is Merlin’s latest bit of research, Eggsy really wouldn’t put it out of the realm of possibility.

And Harry, he’s been… something else. Eggsy’s belly swoops, pulled all hot and tight and squirmy just at the thought. God, it’s like being a teenager again with his first crush, but every time Harry pulls him aside, makes time to chat and show Eggsy things and just generally be _interested_ in Eggsy, like Eggsy says things that are not only worth listening to but are fascinating and insightful, Eggsy bloody melts.

Eggsy finds himself in front of Harry’s door, again, like he has way too frequently the past eight days, at least if the looks everyone else has been giving him are anything to go by, and peeks his head in. “Hey, Harry.”

“Eggsy! Come in,” Harry says and beams at Eggsy, although he must have plenty of work to be getting on with. He’s the captain after all. But there really isn’t that much for Eggsy to do until they’re closer to the galaxy they’ll be investigating — the getting there bit is really not Eggsy’s speciality — so if Harry doesn’t mind having Eggsy watch over his shoulder, well, Eggsy knows where he’d rather be, no matter how much Rox’ll take the piss out of him for it later.

Harry huffs a laugh. “I see you still haven’t managed to learn how to knock.”

“Now where’s the fun in that. Afraid I’ll catch you with your pants down?” Eggsy smirks.

Harry levels him a look, but that warm amusement is still there in his eyes, and yeah. _Yeah_.

Eggsy would gladly go on a hundred missions to explore space with this man. No doubts.

Day 17

The boredom is really starting to settle in, Eggsy can tell. Even Roxy looks ready to start a fire or something, just to have something to _do_. That’s the thing they never told them about long-distance space travel like this; it’s small and cramped and at this speed their communication capabilities are absolute shit, not to mention there’s nowhere to go and only six other people to go nowhere with.

The Kingsmen are all old-hat at this sort of thing and seem much more impervious to the tedium than Eggsy thinks he could ever be. There’s still a month and a half to go until they’re halfway through the mission, for fuck’s sake. There aren’t enough books and games and vids in the universe for him to store on his tablet to stave off that amount of boredom.

Even following Harry around and poking his head into everything is starting to lose its lustre. A bit anyway, although Eggsy’ll never get sick of Harry’s fond looks whenever Eggsy does something particularly daft — which is happening a lot more often now that he’s starting to feel like an animal that’s been cooped up in a cage too long with no end in sight.

One thing has become clear though: their older counterparts have developed some fucking _weird arse_ ways of coping with the deep black.

Eggsy knows for a fact that Harry works on his bug collection, having caught him rearranging them all in nice little rows and trying to suss out Eggsy’s opinion on which butterfly should be next to which before Eggsy could escape. And Eggsy’s heard the rumours about the taxidermy, which is fucking rank as far as Eggsy’s concerned. But no man can be perfect and it had only been a matter of time before Eggsy’d found Harry’s flaw.

It’s the deep black, makes everyone fucking barmy at some point.

Eggsy and Roxy are snuggled up top to tail on the sofa in the lounge watching in perverse fascination as Percival slowly and methodically builds a model town out of nail clippings and discarded bits and bobs.

“Mate, I gotta ask. Why the bloody nail clippings?”

Alastair jerks up slightly, like he’s forgotten he has an audience, and blinks a bit. “It’d be a shame to waste them,” he says, as if that makes perfect sense and clears everything right up.

Roxy shares a horrified look with Eggsy once Alastair turns back to his little town, humming thoughtfully.

“You reckon we’ll end up like this lot someday?” Eggsy whispers.

Roxy shudders. “Promise me you’ll send me out an airlock if I do.”

When Merlin walks in muttering to himself at his clipboard, he stops and does a double-take and then yanks his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose. “This is why you have a _room_ , Alastair. No one wants to see that shite.”

“James is practising naked zum dancing again and he hates having an audience before he has the routine down. Besides, Roxy and Eggsy are enjoying themselves,” he says mildly.

What. the. fuck.

Merlin looks at them with pity in his eyes and shakes his head. “Scaring them off, more like,” he grumbles and flees back to do… whatever it is that Merlin does, which seems to be everything, although Eggsy would be hard pressed to explain to anyone what any of that actually entails.           

Day 20

Charlie is being especially dickheaded even for him, so Eggsy’s sought out shelter in Harry’s room for the evening. It’s nice and quiet here — small, yeah, but Harry and Merlin both have their own rooms as the superior officers and Eggsy is more than content to make a nest on the little bit of floor space between Harry’s desk and the bed out of some extra pillows and blankets he’s found. And Harry seems happy to let him relax there, friendly banter flowing naturally into companionable silence.

It’s fucking lovely if Eggsy’s being completely honest.

Eggsy winces thinking about how Alastair is stuck with Charlie again today. It’s not like he has a choice since it falls to him to help train Charlie up as a pilot and navigator, but still, no one deserves that punishment. At least Charlie really is exceptionally good at maths and plotting courses and whatnot, so Alastair doesn’t have trouble with him there, he just has to put up with the twat. Merlin had looked so incredibly relieved during their mission debrief that he’d be working with Roxy as the systems engineer, and so far Eggsy’s got on well with James. Poor Percival, stuck with Arthur’s prick of a nephew — must run in the family.

Speaking of. "Why's everyone in Kingsman get a code name anyway? Not like we need em."

Harry stirs from his work at the desk and says, "Honestly? Probably just to make people feel special and self-important." He slants a look at Eggsy. "Still want one?"

" _Abso-fucking-lutely_ ,” Eggsy says with so much conviction that Harry laughs and pushes himself around in his chair towards Eggsy and grins at him in amusement.

“Good,” he says softly. “Kingsman will be lucky to have you.”

Eggsy can feel himself blushing, Jesus, and he snuggles down into the pillows a bit, blinking up at Harry through the one eye still turned towards him. “If I’m accepted.”

“You will be,” Harry says simply, as if it’s already decided, as if Chester bloody King will ever approve of Eggsy’s presence amongst Kingsman’s ‘elite’.

Eggsy chews on his lip. He trusts Harry, absolutely; it’s much of the rest of the administration back at home base that makes him wary. “I never asked: why’d you pick my application anyway? Didn’t even know you lot was involved in that part of the process.”

Harry leans back in his chair, considering, and then smiles that happy little smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes and catches the breath in Eggsy’s throat. “You deserved the opportunity just as much as anyone else, if not more. Despite not having tutors shoved at you since you were in nappies, you had wonderful scores on our entrance exam. And, yes, you have more than a few indiscretions on your record, but your commanders in the Marines had nothing but praise.” Harry pauses, looks at Eggsy. “But the most important thing, for me, was your essay. You have so much potential, Eggsy, and you truly want to do something good and meaningful. Too few people who try for Kingsman do.”

And that’s just— _Fuck_. Eggsy can’t even begin to think of a response to all that, has never had anyone talk about him like he was someone special before. Someone worthy of that kind of praise. Eggsy’s heart lurches and his brain stutters and collapses in on itself in a beaming, vibrating pool of happiness.

And Harry seems to recognise that Eggsy’s having trouble pulling himself together because he just says quietly, “I was thinking about watching one of the vids in my Old Earth film collection before bed. Would you like to stay?”

Eggsy nods and Harry props his tablet up on his desk and goes to sprawl out on the bed just behind Eggsy, a warm, comforting presence that lulls Eggsy into such perfect contentment he wants to grab it fiercely and never let the feeling go.

Day 25

The only thing that’s stopped Eggsy from wanking a truly obscene amount and wearing his hand off is that he has to bunk with both Roxy and Charlie and they’re always fucking _there_ — and it’s not like there’s really anywhere else for them to be.

But he’s still managing to rub one off often enough that it should probably be concerning.

Whatever, it’s all Harry’s fault anyway.

Day 31

Kingsman suits are amazing pieces of technology, don’t get Eggsy wrong. In an emergency they only have to pop on their helmets and gloves and they can survive pretty much fucking anything. They’re deceptively lightweight, like a second skin really, and smooth and sleek; most fashion designers would be hard pressed to come up with a more flattering design for a toned body, and Kingsmen are nothing if not in top physical condition. Who knows what they’ll face out here in the deep black and they have a workout regimen to make Eggsy’s former marine buddies weep.

The problem is that they were clearly designed to drive Eggsy mental. Three more months of this and all that will be left of Eggsy is a slobbery, gibbering pile of goo. If it were just the other five, Eggsy’d be alright, really. They all look bloody fantastic, of course, and Eggsy has even caught himself watching Charlie stretch in idle fancy despite the fact that Charlie is an utter wankstain and Eggsy wouldn’t go near him if he was the last human in the universe and Eggsy lost both his hands and could never get off on his own again.

Eggsy just has an aesthetic appreciation for fine things and he ain’t _blind_.

Harry, though. Harry is an issue. A major issue. The suit emphasises Harry’s body perfectly, stretched over his broad shoulders and toned chest and abs down to his trim, narrow hips — and a chest-to-waist ratio like that shouldn’t be physically possible. And that’s not even taking into account his tight (and seriously _biteable_ ) arse or his sinful legs. _Those bloody magnificent legs_. Some part of Eggsy thinks he should probably be ashamed about the amount of time he has dedicated to fantasising about those legs and what he could do with them over his lifetime, but honestly fuck that.

Those legs are the twelfth wonder of the universe as far as Eggsy is concerned, right up there with the icefall on Elsinine Major, no question, and Eggsy has the extensive research and reasoning to back it up. How everyone else manages to function with Harry walking around like he does Eggsy simply can’t understand.

Like now, for instance, with Harry clearly just back from a run in their hole of a gym with its one treadmill and weight bench, rubbing the sweat off the back of his neck and his suit even more clingy than normal, damp as it is. Harry sees Eggsy and smiles, his eyes crinkling warmly at the corners, and asks, “I was just going to have dinner after a quick shower. Care to join me?”

Eggsy nods because he doesn’t trust himself to form actual words at the moment, dry as his mouth is, and tries not to whimper as he watches Harry saunter off for his shower. Sod it all.

Day 36

"You what?" Merlin stares at him, each blink like a full-body twitch where he’s only just stopping himself from cursing.

Eggsy rubs the back of his neck. “I cracked my glasses. Sorry, guv,” he says with a bright, innocent smile.

“Then why do they smell like shit?” Merlin asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Rox and me were just having a bit of a laugh. Nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to— You broke nearly _indestructible glasses_ , what the bloody hell were you doing?”

Well, they’d been trying to set a stink bomb off on Charlie in the loo and had crawled into the ventilation shaft to lay their trap. (They’d managed to come up with a formula they could make on hand that’d be nearly impossible to get off of human skin and there was no way they weren’t going to get Charlie back for the stunt he pulled last week, stealing all their clean clothes and towels; the tosser had been asking for it really.) Which of course was when Harry had walked in in nothing but a towel and bent over and— Well. Things got a little messy after Eggsy had banged his head into the wall and given himself a nosebleed.

“Just a teeny, tiny prank, but then Harry walked in and you know,” Eggsy says, waving his hands emphatically.

“Oh, Harry is it? And what exactly am I going to find on your footage when I go over it?”

"Uhh," Eggsy says intelligently and starts gesturing over his shoulder and walking away. “I’m supposed to meet Harry, sorry, gotta run. Let me know if you can fix them."

“ _UNWIN, THERE BETTER NOT BE ANY ARSE ON THIS FOOTAGE._ ”

Day 40

Roxy takes Eggsy and shakes him by his shoulders. “It’s been over a month, Eggsy. _A month_. In the name of all that is holy, why haven’t you shagged Harry yet?”

"Rox, it ain't like that. He likes to teach me things, don't mean he wants to fuck me."

"Eggsy, what he'd really love to teach you is the bloody _Kama Sutra_. Even Charlie thinks so and he’s thicker than two bricks when it comes to interpersonal relationships and doesn’t notice anything unless it hits him in the fucking face."

Eggsy sighs, “He’s just mentoring me, I swear. You are reading way more into it than there is.”

“Oh my god, you are actually hopeless. The both of you,” she says, face all scrunched up like she’s in physical pain.

Day 47

They’ve finally made it to the Saponoid galaxy and Eggsy has never been more grateful to have actual work to do. _Ever_.

Parsing through the preliminary data from their scans confirms more-or-less what they already knew: there is fuck all here. Definitely no planets or moons worthy of even the vaguest consideration of colonisation and they’re unlikely to find anything valuable enough to mine, not with how much it would cost to bring back to the inhabited parts of the universe.

And Eggsy knew this coming into the mission, but it’s still disappointing. The galaxy had been chosen for their training exercise because it would be a relatively simple in-and-out job; it’s remote and nowhere near anything, but not so far as to be a truly long-haul excursion, and it had all the indications of a small, dim galaxy that would have little of interest and therefore no need to go planetside or do more serious exploring. Easy.

Eggsy would kill to shuttle down to one of these planets right now. It’s everything he’s been studying and preparing for, his time to shine, but he sighs knowing they could never justify the resources and flicks the data up off his tablet and onto the wall so that everyone can see the readouts on their glasses.

Harry smiles at Eggsy encouragingly. “So why don’t you take us through your findings, Eggsy, and tell us how to proceed.”

“Wha— I mean— I thought my role was to be more observational until I’ve been cleared. This is Lancelot’s field,” Eggsy stutters and Harry waves a hand.

“Nonsense. How else are you supposed to learn? Lancelot, Merlin, and I have every faith in you and we’re here to help.”

Eggsy looks down and takes a deep breath. He knows what he’s doing. _He can do this_. Then he looks back up and pulls on his most professional demeanor. “Well, as expected there is very little here. The sun is weak and the planets are too far from it for any possibility of sustaining life. But there are some moons around the gas giant here,” Eggsy says and circles them on his tablet, “which may have some promise. The innermost one may have large stores of ice and water, but we’ll need to do closer study to find out how extensive they are, and one of the outer ones appears to be rich in lithium and silicon. The only other object worth exploring is a large asteroid over here, which has all the indications of an emerald core.”

Harry and Merlin share a glance at that. If it’s large enough the scavengers will be out here before anyone can blink. Not that they won’t be long gone by the time anyone else arrives (another reason this galaxy had been chosen for training: little chance of running into any hostiles; there’s a reason Kingsman recruits heavily from the military and is always well armed), but it’s still a consideration.

“So these are your recommendations for further study?” Harry finally continues.

“Yes, sir,” Eggsy says and draws himself up to his full height.

“Lancelot?” Harry asks, tipping his head at James.

Eggsy bites his lip as James goes over the data once more. He’s got to know James better over their journey and James might be a strange bloke with a penchant for ridiculous flair, but he’s fair and most importantly he knows his shit better than anyone else Eggsy has ever met in their field. Eggsy’s learned a lot.

James nods his head firmly. “That would be my exact recommendation as well, Galahad.”

While James smiles and Merlin claps Eggsy on the shoulder in congratulations with a rumbling “good work, Eggsy” that makes Eggsy flush in happiness, it’s the quiet pride in Harry’s eyes that has his pulse throttling and belly twisted all up.

Day 53

"Look, Roxy, we have over two more months to go and I don't know about you, but my hand just isn't cutting it anymore," Charlie says as he plops down and interrupts their lunch.

" _Absolutely not_."

"But Roxy," Charlie whines.

"I might be the only woman on this ship, but you are hardly my only option if you've forgotten." Roxy starts eating again and turns away from Charlie as much as possible, rolling her eyes at Eggsy.

"What, Merlin? You'd pick him over me?"

"There's Harry too, you know," Eggsy feels the need to point out. James and Alastair are the worst kept secret in Kingsman, but Harry is single and has dated birds before. Not that he wants to put the idea in Roxy's head, mind, but on principle: Harry is infinitely more attractive than his royal fuckwit-ness.

Roxy and Charlie both turn to stare at him.

"Eggsy, dear, I love you and you might be the best planet specialist to come out of Kingsman in decades, but _honestly_."

Charlie just blinks at Eggsy a couple times like he's some strange alien species he's never seen before and then looks back at Rox. "So it's me or Merlin, who's it going to be."

Roxy leans forward with a vicious grin. " _Merlin._ "

Eggsy gives Roxy a fist bump while Charlie splutters indignantly. "That's my girl."

*

"Roxy, you can't actually shack up with Merlin, you know that right. If you do, I'll be by myself completely surrounded by couples. The ship wouldn't survive so much awkwardness."

"You had no problem leaving Merlin as the sole singleton,” Roxy says placidly, flicking through an article on her tablet and taking notes.

"Me and Harry aren't dating," Eggsy mutters. Again, for the millionth fucking time. Charlie just waves him off.

"Yeah, but, it's _Merlin_. He's probably designed all sorts of robots to keep him company."

Roxy pauses thoughtfully at that and then smirks at Charlie. “Now _there_ is an idea. Can’t let things become dull when there’s at least two more months of shagging to be had. An extra pair of hands or two can never hurt.”

And Charlie’s fucking face when she says that, it’s like he can’t decide whether to be disgusted or begrudgingly impressed, and Eggsy laughs so hard he ends up gasping between his knees while Charlie storms away banging on about what childish arseholes they both are and Rox erupts into giggles that she can’t seem to stop no matter how much they both try to control themselves.

James walks in at one point and just raises his eyebrows. “Good lord, what the hell did you do to him? He’s walking around with an even bigger stick up his arse than normal.”

“Nothing he didn’t ask for,” Eggsy manages to choke out. Roxy just shakes her head and buries her face in her hands.

James shrugs. “Fair enough, can’t say I blame you.”

*

“So you really going to shag Merlin and his sex robots?” Eggsy has to ask. Because seriously.

Roxy smirks into her tablet. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Merlin has sex robots?” Alastair asks from nowhere, head peeking suddenly through the door.

“We figure that must be what he does in his spare time. Everyone else has a hobby,” Eggsy says.

Alastair seems to consider this for a moment, before nodding his head like their logic makes perfect sense and disappearing again.

Day 60

“What you looking so smug about?”

Merlin laughs into his clipboard and then gives Eggsy a sly grin. “I convinced Charlie that Harry hides his secret stash of Venphen chocolates in the equipment cupboard. He should be in there all day at least,” he says and claps Eggsy on the back. “Enjoy being rid of the wretched little shit while you can, lad.”

Eggsy cackles — there’s enough shite stuffed into that cupboard to last for centuries. “I knew I liked you, Merlin, you devious bastard.”

Day 71

Harry has decided to teach Eggsy the finer points of whisky as a celebration of the end of their work in this galaxy and Eggsy’s first success in the field. While they didn’t find all that much in the grand scheme of things, Eggsy’s predictions held out and he’d coordinated all the tests and studies they needed to do, which of their little rovers to send where to collect what samples, in record time.

Eggsy’s riding high and feeling pretty fucking great at the moment. This, this right here, is everything he’s always wanted — and more. He certainly would never have imagined getting bonus gentleman Harry to take him under his wing, give him fancy whisky and go on about being a proper gent like Eggsy can be one too, all while looking like one of Eggsy’s childhood fantasies.

And whisky's really all the same to Eggsy, but he loves the stupid pompous look Harry gets on his face as he waxes lyrical about peat and smoke and ageing and a bunch of other posh nonsense.

Bloody hell, Eggsy has it _bad_.

Eggsy can’t really complain though, sprawled as he is in one of the two chairs in Harry’s room, Harry all loose and relaxed across from him, the top of his suit partially undone. No, can’t complain at all.

“I thought we weren’t allowed to bring any booze?”

Harry smirks at him and takes another considering sip. “Recruits aren’t allowed to bring any booze. As captain I have a certain allotment of space and weight and I can bring whatever comforts that can fit.”

“And then share them with recruits, yeah?” Eggsy raises an eyebrow and licks at the lip of his glass, chasing the last of the whisky.

Harry hums and stretches wider in his chair. “If there’s someone I want to share with, yes,” Harry murmurs and there’s something almost hot and challenging in his eyes.

Eggsy swallows and eyes the splay of Harry’s legs, the length of them in the half-light of Harry’s lamp. “You been holding out on me all this time?”

“Well, I usually only bring a small stash and I’m not really the sharing type to be honest. Not with things I keep for myself.” And Harry is basically purring at this point, voice gone all low and smooth in a way that punches Eggsy straight in the gut and makes him desperately aware of his cock trapped thick and heavy in the confines of his suit.

 _You could keep me_ , Eggsy thinks fiercely but manages to swallow back saying it aloud through sheer force of will and the strategic fumbling of his glass. But looking at Harry’s eyes, the subtle tension in his limbs as he studies Eggsy and draws his gaze over him, Eggsy shivers slightly and realises that maybe, just maybe, Roxy might be onto something.

So Eggsy pulls that thought out and considers it and let’s it hang there heavily between them as he meets Harry’s stare with his own challenge.

_Maybe, maybe, maybe._

Day 75

"Christ, it's like you've adopted a bloody animal! Grow some goddamn bollocks and do something about it already because I can’t take it anymore.”

Eggsy pauses and cocks his head at Merlin’s muffled shouting through Harry’s door, curious.

Okay, much, much more than curious, and he might wander closer to the door and strain to hear Harry’s response because how could he not. There’s a bit of thumping for a while, but Eggsy can’t make anything out clearly.

“For the thousandth fucking time, _I do not have sex robots!_ ”

Eggsy snickers.

Day 79

When the emergency lights flare and the sound goes off Eggsy’s stomach plummets through his feet.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” Eggsy swears as he tears down the hallway.

_What if it’s Harry._

*

Eggsy keeps his head down as he tends to Alastair’s leg, watching everyone else pace and shout from under his eyelashes.

The details are still a bit unclear to Eggsy; by the time he’d got there, Alastair had already been pulled inside and his leg was bleeding something awful in his suit. Eggsy knows this though: Harry is a grim line of silent fury in the back of the room and Merlin is beyond livid while James hovers next to Alastair and looks guilty and worried sick and a number of other very un-James-like qualities that make dread pool in Eggsy’s gut.

Other than Alastair, Eggsy is the only one with field medic training, courtesy of the Marines, so he stays and tends to Alastair and tries to be as unobtrusive as possible for once.

“What the fuck were you _thinking_?! Percival could’ve been killed during that space walk. During a repair which was supposed to be short and simple I might add, for Christ’s sake. You should know better than to distract him over the comms like that, Lancelot. It’s still _fucking space_ and it kills people. Save your goddamn foreplay for the bedroom where it belongs!” Merlin bangs his clipboard on a table. “ _Fuck_ , five seconds longer and we would’ve lost him,” he grits out and hangs his head.

*

Harry’s being weird — and not in his usual charming way either. But Eggsy follows him back to his room from dinner anyway, like he has so many times before, because after a day like today Eggsy wants nothing more than to wallow in his nest and feel safe and cared for in the way that he’s only ever felt in Harry’s quiet, steady presence.

“Mind if I join you?” Eggsy asks softly when Harry still hasn’t acknowledged him.

“Sorry, Eggsy, I have work to do,” Harry says without even looking up. And it shouldn’t hurt so fucking much, this flat rejection, but it _does_ , fucking hell, it does, and Eggsy lets himself out quietly and tries to calm his reedy, thready pulse.

Maybe tomorrow once everyone’s calmed down.

Day 93

It’s been two weeks — _two whole fucking weeks_ — of nothing more than short, clipped responses and little more than formal eye contact. No warmth, no humour, zero fucking personal recognition in Harry’s eyes. Eggsy might as well be a brainless automaton for how Harry is treating him since Alastair’s accident. It’s bloody _infuriating_.

Seriously, fuck this. Eggsy is lonely and horny and he is going to lock himself in the room and have a long, uninterrupted bloody wank, ta very much. Everyone else can bugger off; he’s taking some well-fucking-deserved personal time.

Eggsy strips quickly and throws himself into his bunk, breath hitching at the luxury of being completely alone and having cool air caress his skin. He’s already got a half-chub just at the thought of sprawling freely and indulging in it, and he skids the pads of his fingers down his chest slowly, taking his time, until he has a loose grip around the base of his rapidly filling cock, which twitches pleasantly when he scratches his nails through the hairs there.

Yeah, that’s nice. That’s just what he needs.

He barely puts up a fight when his mind wanders back to Harry’s room, that night a few weeks ago with Harry all loose-limbed and pliant, back before whatever the fuck this whole sodding mess has become, back when the tension between them felt like it was finally going to come to a head. Trying to think about something not Harry is a lost cause if he’s ever known one.

Harry probably has a really nice cock under that suit, long and thick. The kind of cock Eggsy would love nothing more than to rub his face against and worship like it deserves. Eggsy imagines what Harry would look like if he did just that, the greedy, hungry face he would make, and Eggsy sucks his fingers into his mouth, getting them wet and sloppy, imagines they aren’t his fingers at all.

Imagines Harry putting Eggsy on his knees and just using him, large, sure hands guiding and pushing Eggsy exactly where Harry wants him. Eggsy hisses and jerks his hand faster at the thought of Harry pulling out and coming on Eggsy's face, the way it would feel dripping down his cheeks.

How he would _look_. "Fuuuck," Eggsy bites out, stomach clenching. He'd be all flushed and debauched, covered, _marked_ as Harry's, still kneeling at his feet with his cock jutting out, waiting for Harry to choose what to do with him.

Or maybe, maybe Eggsy would push Harry down over that bloody desk, show him exactly what Eggsy can do.

Eggsy can't even tell what noises he's making anymore, lost in absolute toe-curling pleasure, but it's the image of Harry spread out underneath him as Eggsy opens him up, how his hole would feel slick and tight but yielding around his fingers, his cock. _His tongue_.

That's the image that tips him over and reverberates through his skull while his prick throbs in his hand.

Day 94

“Have a good night, Eggsy? Certainly sounded like _you enjoyed yourself_ ,” Charlie says with childish, vindictive glee the next day and Eggsy seriously considers jumping ship.

_Fuck it all._

Harry coughs from the doorway and it takes all of Eggsy’s self-control not to drop his head on the table.

“I was wondering if I might have a word with you, Eggsy. In private.”

“Yeah, sure,” Eggsy says and follows Harry back to his room, because what the fuck else is he supposed to do.

*

Harry sighs and pushes his glasses back, then grimaces and it is so unlike him that Eggsy has to bite his tongue and clench all his fingers and toes to stop himself from doing something utterly stupid — like declaring his arse open season for Harry’s sole pleasure and wouldn’t Harry like to take him out for a free test ride?

Jesus fucking Christ, Eggsy needs to get a bleeding grip.

Harry coughs. _Right_. Discussion time, oh joy.

“It has come to my attention that I might’ve been giving you… mixed signals, shall we say. And that for the good of the crew, I should—” Harry pauses, looking down at his tablet “—put an end to this godforsaken sexual tension before Merlin ejects himself in an escape pod or your kicked-puppy look gives Lancelot permanent indigestion. To quote them in their own words, of course,” Harry says wryly.

 _Well, time to woman-up and deal with his feelings like an adult, as Rox always tells him_ , Eggsy thinks and stands up straighter, jutting his chin out just a bit. He has a crush on Harry, so fucking what. They’re both adults, yeah, Eggsy’s not going to act like a kid who needs to be sent back to the child’s table.

He can do this. He can, no matter how much the majority of him wants to panic and scream _absolutely not_ , and go hide in a tiny storage cupboard somewhere for the next month or so until he becomes one with the panelling and discovers some new level of being, like that cult of ‘ship-speakers’ they sent Eggsy’s unit to ferret out during Marine’s training. Proper mental-like.

Eggsy really did put on his rational adult pants today, swear down.

“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll control myself better in the future, won’t be a distraction for anyone at all,” Eggsy forces himself to say anyway, because he is a fucking professional and a gentleman, even if Harry doesn’t want him to be _his_ gentleman. That’s Harry’s prerogative.

Eggsy wonders if Harry wasn’t trying to let him down gently, if he’d be impressed by how much Eggsy’s learned from him.

Harry sighs again. “That’s not…” Then Harry snorts and takes his glasses off, rubbing his temples. “I’m afraid, dear boy, that I find your mere presence terribly distracting, and I am apparently much worse at hiding my reactions than I had thought,” Harry says with a pained smile.

Eggsy’s thoughts abruptly halt and then veer so wildly off the tracks he thinks he might actually be in danger of mental whiplash. He opens his mouth, pauses. Blinks at Harry a bit, before he finally manages to kickstart a few brain cells together into something that might be vaguely helpful.

“But you stopped talking to me.”

Harry takes a deep breath. “I know, and I apologise. Whatever my feelings, they aren’t your fault and I shouldn’t have pushed you away like that. But after the accident, all I could think about was what if it had been you and we hadn’t got there in time? We can’t afford to be distracted, not out here while we’re on a mission.”

"Mate, dunno if you noticed, but I find you pretty fucking distracting whether you're talking to me or not,” Eggsy says and raises an eyebrow.

Harry smirks, only a small upturn at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes are absolutely devious. "Eggsy, trust me when I say that after your performance last night, there is not a single person on board this ship who isn't aware of that, in explicit and exacting detail."

" _Shit_ ," Eggsy mutters, with feeling, and slinks down into his seat and wonders if someone could kindly shove him out an airlock and into the nearest sun before he can embarrass himself further — or his face finds a way to turn an even more incriminating shade of red.

Harry laughs and it’s— it’s actually kind of nice. Eggsy hadn’t realised how much he’d missed Harry’s laugh, and his belly wobbles a little, happy.

“Well, as someone pointed out to me earlier, trying to pretend that an attraction doesn’t exist can be just as distracting, if not more so, than actually allowing things to progress naturally.”

“Oh yeah?” Eggsy breathes, heart thumping through his chest, and he’s pretty sure his body must be fucking glowing at this point, a supernova of hope and anticipation that can’t be contained.

“If nothing else, I’m sure I can find something else for your mouth to do, instead of waking every living being within three galaxies,” Harry drawls.

And oh fuck yeah, that’s the Harry Eggsy’s been missing. It is so _on_. Screw professional and gentlemanly, Eggsy has every intention of dirtying Harry right up. Eggsy beams, sliding out of his chair and right into Harry's lap, and nothing has ever felt better than Harry's lean, muscular thighs underneath his, the breadth of his shoulders under Eggsy's hands. Then Harry grips him bruisingly tight by the waist and hauls Eggsy down for a deep, fierce kiss that obliterates what little coherent thought Eggsy had left.

Harry pulls back, panting, and cocks his head to the side, eyes slanted at Eggsy. “You ever shag someone in zero gravity, Eggsy?”

“No,” Eggsy chokes out, mouth gone dry and uncoordinated.

“Then I think we've found your next lesson.”

“ _Yes, Harry._ ”

Days 95-121

It’s not that Eggy is _trying_ to force one of the other knights to write up a formal noise complaint before they finally make it home, but he can’t say that he doesn’t enjoy all the ways Harry comes up with to keep him quiet.

The way Merlin’s eye always twitches afterwards like he’s contemplating whether it would be worth it to ‘accidentally’ shove one of their recruits out an airlock don’t hurt either.

All in all, Eggsy thinks his first mission has gone rather splendidly. Harry’s already picking out Eggsy’s codename — not that Arthur needs to know.

[MISSION END]


End file.
